A Prolonged Encounter

I met her nearly five years ago when she was just starting out medical school, and I was finishing out my last year of engineering school at Boston University. She was really young then, turning nine teen, and I was also young and naïve. The word innocent to describe her then was a massive understatement. She was a white Lily bud that was about to blossom into a fully grown flower. Though not equally, we were both young in mind, spirit, and of course, we had little emotional maturity. So we used to express what was on our mind with no reservations for the consequences that might be in store.

After the first few conversations, we become more and more drawn to each other. I was going through a breakup. She was there to emotionally help me through my ordeal. It was my last year of school, so it was more than hectic. There were papers, research projects, designed projects. It seemed like all assignments waited to the last year to be assigned. Apart from that, an engineer-to-be, at the time, had to vigorously look for a job with a respectable company in the respective field of engineering. I was running after myself every single day. There was many a time when I just stayed up all night working on design projects or senior projects. Thus there was tremendous pressure on me and little pleasure in life. She was the only one few sources of inspiration that kept me going. Busy as I was, I reserved a few hours a day to talk to her. We also exchanged e-mails. Every day I looked forward to read her e-mails like a drug that was prescribed and needed to be taken. She brought joy to my life! In response, she was there almost every time I expected her to be. She needed me too!

The first photo of hers sent to me was taken at an event, a formal prompt that she attended in her last day in high school. She was in a black evening dress, holding a rose, smiling happily. Her hair done to style, but at the time, was a little bit out of place. “Not very striking, yet adorable!” I thought to myself, but as I looked on, her eyes smiled. A girl with smiling eyes! Her eyes were black and clear, very sincere and warm. Still I looked at the photo and couldn’t help but felt closeness to this person-one that I hadn’t even once met in person.

The correspondence kept going through e-mails, letters, and telephone calls. The first call I made to her was much disappointing. I guess we expected too much! Too much anticipation leading to the call! We understood half of the things each other was saying. We weren’t used to each other’s accent. She was speaking Australian and I was speaking American mixed in with this little Vietnamese accent. Nevertheless, it was lovely to hear her voice. I loved it! It was as cheerful and spirited as her smile in the pictures. The subsequent phone calls kept getting better and better. We talked long into the nights and we had come to understand!

The letters were also coming both ways. I guess, it was one of a very few ways that we could showcase our personality and our private feelings for each other. So we went out of our way to write and to prepare the letters as presentable as possible. Her letters often came in nicely gothic design envelopes, with calligraphy of my and her addresses on it. This is all natural and characteristic of her, since she was a Catholic thoroughbred. Soon as they were picked up, they gave this scent of alluring aroma that lingers until today. There were usually many pages of nice and neat penmanship. As careful as the penmanship was, the flow and tone of the letters were free spirited and cheerful which reflected her personality and disposition. They were always rich in detail about her daily activities, events that were coming, events that were happening in her life. It was apparent that she tried to share her daily life with me, wanting me to witness it to the best extent possible. At times, she wrote to me like writing a diary that would depict her every moment of what she was thinking, feeling, doing, and working for a stretch of days.

More and more photos were coming both ways. There was a photo in which she sat on the lawn on the bank of the Torrens. She was feeding the baby ducks in spring, when nature came alive in Adelaide and especially along the Torrens. Her long, luxurious black hair ran down to her thigh, and there were those smiling eyes. Her wholesome face was cheerful and was as free spirited as a young bird that’s just learned to fly. She had on a flower-pattern shirt and blue jeans. Every thing of hers presented this wonderful innocence, purity and pristinity of an angel.

Our attention for each other was so much fun, needed and satisfying. Though only through letters and e-mails and phone calls, we could feel the warmth and comfort of each other’s care and love. She became invasive a part of my life that could not be replaced by any other. My days became much more meaningful and blissful. This started my life anew, and this new found happiness inspired me again to love and to write. It’s amazing how easy it is to write when one has inspiration; just think and the verses just start coming out. And so I wrote:

Ocean Away
Conversing day by day
You’ve eased my pain
And my heart no longer restrained

Ocean Away
A Joy has sprung into my world…

Of course, the relationship is only more meaningful and intriguing when the feeling is mutual, and one’s gestures are reciprocated by the other’s. She sensed and cherished the heart-felt closeness, yet she regretted the distance of space. Therefore, at times she was reluctant to express her whole-hearted affection. But then love is a mystical force whose might can never be understood nor calibrated before it truly happens. So when it does happen, there’s nothing one can do to fight it. She tried and miserably failed, as she admitted:

Deep down it hurts to know
You’re so far away
But it’s comforting to know
You’re with me day by day…

Yes, the more she tried the closer we were drawn to each other and craved for mutual affection. We opened up a whole new world in each other, and showed each other what love really meant and how it effectually altered our life. She found meaningfulness of life and happiness through our relationship, so she put it all in verses:

Words cannot express
What you mean to me
Through you and only you
The whole new world I see…

There, we’d found in each other the whole new world,’ Love’.

When a young innocent girl loves for the first time, it’s intense! She devoted most of her time in attending to me in anyway she could, and so it took a lot out of her normal life. She dreamt about how it would be if we were physically together. We often dreamt of being alone on a sunny summer beach. There we would sing, recite poems, and she would fall peacefully asleep in my arms. There, we would lie on the sand, listen to the serenade of ocean waves, and be carefree about what else was going on in the world.

At times we dreamt of walking through the park hand in hand when spring brought life to plants, trees and all livings, when the bees, butterflies started to look for honey on spring’s blossoms. The refreshing rain would come and we’d be dancing in the rain to the songs of nature, of jubilation and of love.

Other times we saw ourselves walking through the autumn woods of Adelaide’s hills, where the trees and plants had just turned to bright yellow and red, where the withering leaves covered all hills and walk trails throughout the park. We would run, sing, and dance to the rhythm of nature. Regrettably, we didn’t get to do all this together. So she went alone to the hills and had pictures taken and sent to me with narration on each one as though we were walking the hills together. She would walk alone on the path of autumn on the hills, and there, she would think of me and wonder what it would be like if we were together at that instance. Nice! Isn’t it? Walking together on autumn hills.

There were times that we considered giving it all up to go and seek for one another to consummate our love despite all of the consequences that might entail. She didn’t mention it, but I knew she was considering. She asked about the process of applying to an American University to pharmaceutical and medical programs. And I was trying to get an engineering job in Adelaide through the internet. I didn’t tell her though wanting it to be a surprise. But the uncertainty of life always prevails and forces people to follow its course rather than their ability to rise above it. I had to take a job here in America because of survival, and she, she was doing horribly in school. At the time, she told me that she was flunking out and had to retake the exams during extra sessions. She was facing pressure from all angles, and seemed to be succumbing to it. All I could do was to watch on the side line helplessly. Her status in school, pressure from her family, pressure from her peers were just overwhelming her. The pressure from the family was most effective, since she had always been its obedient little girl and had always done well in school. This family obviously historically valued the importance of education and expected its daughter to excel. And of course, it wasn’t shy from taking action to steer her back in the right direction.

I vividly recall that night. The night when she just decided to cut the string and to call it quit. Obviously in distraught, she was in a state of disarray, and was crying a whole lot. She told me, “Love is to let go and be comforted by that fact that you love and are loved” I however found it differently. I thought that when I loved, I should fight and try to attain it regardless the costs. All things considered, it was too much for her at the time, and so I decided to let her to take her time to sort things out, and also to relax her mind in the process in the hope that she would come back when her situation improved.

Her family came down on her pretty hard, taking away her e-mail and telephone privileges, so she supposedly talked to me for the last time that time. However, despite her family pressure on her, she managed to still send me e-mails.

I couldn’t take waiting for her knowing that there’s a great uncertainty that she had about her future in regard to romantic relationships. Therefore, I tried to move on and I did. In the meanwhile we kept contact off and on for a stretch of two years until my employment at Holtec International started in October of 2000 when all of the correspondence stopped both ways.

I met Tuyen shortly after our breakup, some time in October of 1998. Tuyen was attractive with the charm of a country girl from central Vietnam. Even though, she had been in America and been attending college for a while at the time, she still somehow retained that quality with her. She was all that a man could ask for, attentive, attractive, caring and loving. At the time, she was attending the University at Buffalo in New York. And so my life took a new turn; a new chapter had been turned to.

The years with Tuyen were mainly tranquil and happy. I was working as an engineer and Tuyen was attending school still. Even then, she and I still kept contact. Until October 2000, I suddenly lost contact with her, all correspondence stopped. I tried and tried, but I didn’t get any response. Though, I was very happy with Tuyen, she was always in the back of my mind. Somewhere back there, a subconscious hope of her return still existed as my life happily went on.

The events of September 11th shook everyone. Its effect was global and with today’s communicating technologies, the news spread quickly all over the world. A day or two later, she sent me an e-mail to see if I was all right, fearing that I was working in New York City. Before, I had mentioned to her that I had quite a few interviews in the City. I hadn’t checked my e-mails for two days at the time, so I got a panicking phone call from her. She called my brother’s cellular phone, whose number used to be mine. She was glad that I was ok, and our friendship once again rekindled. She once again appeared very cheerful and spirited, and though had grown into an attractive young woman, still maintained the innocence that I once felt in love with. Her lovely long luxurious hair was the same stretching down past her knees. Her eyes still smiled the familiar smile that I had always thought of every night before falling asleep.

Tuyen and I broke up shortly after September 11th. I was once again in distraught, but at this time I was more emotionally mature, so I was able to quickly get back to living my life with a new normalcy. For a first time in a long time, there was no woman in my life.

Hoang En and I are still exchanging e-mails and talk on the phone when I call, but there’s no more letters. I guess she has grown tired of me and just want to see me like a friend from over sea. Our exchanges now are just merely formal courtesy. I don’t really know what has happened, but there’s a strange sense of estrangement, resentment, and hostility on her part. I used to go out of my way and try to find out the reasons, but now I, too, have long grown tired. However, I am very interested to see how this prolonged encounter will unfold at the end.

Until today, it still is a Prolonged Encounter

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